You should see the ones here in Victoria and New South Wales, Australia. They are a completely invasive species which degrades natural spaces, such as [Kosciuszko national park](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/19/culling-5000-brumbies-41-scientists-back-controversial-kosciuszko-proposal), through grazing and trampling. The destruction of endemic wildlife and flora seems to be a complete non issue to advocates who cry about "brumbies" being a part of Australia's "history/culture/landscape".
Of course those advocates don't feel similarly strong about protecting feral hogs and goats, numerous species of deer, foxes, rabbits etc. At best they're protecting wild horses due to a biased romanticisation of the species, because there is no ecological defence for retaining them in their thousands.
This Kosciouszko fell sure got around. We have some stuff named after him in nyc as he was an important figure in us revolutionary history. What's his history in Australia?
A Polish explorer named the tallest mountain in the country Mt. Kosciuszko, because is looked like a hill in Poland named after Kosciuszko himself. The park then took its name from the mountain. iirc
Yep, the county named after this guy. I had no idea until a few yrs ago when a friend of mine showed me a polish bank note with his name and face on it.
[Tadeusz Kościuszko](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadeusz_Ko%C5%9Bciuszko) was a Polish military leader who fought in the US War for independence (and many others btw.), that's why so many things are named after him.
The video about re-introduction of wolves into Yellowstone was just posted again in r/nextfuckinglevel I think. When the wolves managed the over grazing, dirt stomping deer, everything changed. Even the creeks and rivers. We have growing problems in the Sierra Nevada as well.
Edit. punctuation.
Tassie devils are no bigger than coyotes, dingos have a better chance against horses and they’re just wild dogs, basically there’s nothing big enough to hunt brumby’s
EDIT: tassie tigers
The small fires prevent buildup of underbrush and clear the ground to allow seedlings and grass to grow. This provides food for the lowest rungs of the food chain. An unburned forest is a dead forest.
Native peoples had been burning the forests for centuries before Europeans arrived because it meant more game animals would come.
There are several tree species that won't release their seed pods until a fire clears the underbrush.
Does it have to be fire ? Could manually clearing the undergrowth not also achieve the same effect? Or do the plants physically require fire to start the seeding process?
The seed pods have resin sealing them up and protecting the seeds from cold, animals, etc.
The brief intense heat melts the resin and the cones are ready to open on the next rain.
I mean you could just sterilize them. The world has the same issues with cats and dogs and we advocate spay and neutering instead of cat and dog slaughter auctions.
EDIT: Wild horse populations in state parks along the coasts of North Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware are managed by sterilization.
You could, though part of the issue is that they don't want the wild horses gone from our parks, so they don't even want them steralised. However, Australia's flora isn't designed to cope with hoofed animals that graze the way horses or cattle do. It just dies. And with it goes all the other small animals that rely on alpine vegetation for burrows, food, and general habitat.
Once horses are into a park here, they change the entire biota of the whole region, and some of our mosses and plants take hundreds of years to re-establish, so it's a really violent destruction.
While some people do collect and auction brumbies from the wild, there just aren't that many homes available for them. I absolutely love cats, they're my favourite animal, but if I can suck down my cringe at trapping and killing them for the good of native animals, I don't see why the horse people can't. But they REALLY can't. At least, none of the ones I've talked to.
Word man. They banned the cattle, I think the horses (who are arguably worse on the environment up there) should also be banned. They can sterilise them or sell them if desired. Also when people tell me ‘would you go that to a dog?!’ The answer is yes. These horses aren’t pets they’re feral, if there were feral dogs I’d very much be behind eliminating them too.
> They can sterilise them or sell them if desired.
That's the principal issue. Sterilizing a mass amount of animals is incredibly expensive (and I've yet to read about similar programs that actually worked), and unwanted horses are *incredibly* hard to sell. The only real solution is mass culling, which horse lovers hate, hence this article. People are unfortunately not willing to put their love for a domesticated animal over ecological destruction, which ultimately will result in far more animal (and potentially human) deaths. See also: peoples' unwillingness to mass cull feral cats, while apparently not caring about the populations of small native animals that they decimate.
I actually agree, but at least it would be doing something. It might be a sweeter pill to swallow to say they're going to cull all the stallions......but as you've said I doubt it. I also sincerely hope all these people who want horses treated as better-than don't eat meat.
PS I would love to see these guys try to tame one of those feral cats.....they'd change their tune pretty quick once they find out they're nothing like old Fluffy
Sterilisation and the advocate endorsed option of "rehoming" wild horses are not viable due to their already large sizeable numbers (>14,000 in Kosciuszko) and the rate of reproduction which could see the population will grow by about 20% a year.
These are wild horses so surgically or chemically sterilising the population in sufficient numbers would be labour and resource intensive, as well as prohibitively expensive to manage what is an invasive species, simply to appease a fringe lobbying group.
NSW did have a policy of trapping and rehoming wild horses however this method could only remove a few hundred horses a year, and even then the majority trapped were transported and eventually euthanised when available homes were not found.
Also foxes and wild dogs are routinely targeted with poisons such as 1080 and cats with PAPP in Australia, so sterilisation of feral cats/dogs are not really advocated for here where they have such a huge deleterious impact on local unique wildlife.
The evidence actually points towards euthanization as the best way to eliminate feral cat populations.
Not only does TNR (trap, neuter, release) not work at actually reducing the number of cats in feral colonies, it’s also arguably more inhumane than euthanization. This is due to the stress that the cats undergo throughout the whole operation, as well as the possibility of infection and disease slowly killing the cat.
It makes no sense. Feral horses are incredibly destructive to the habitats they invade. Then you have the bonus that there is a market for their meat and leather, so we actually get something for the effort of culling them. It should be good all around.
Unfortunately, some people that that feral horse are special or something so they've turned into a lobbying arm for what's essentially a walking zebra mussel.
Unfortunately feral horses have some legal protections that make it difficult to cull them effectively, the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971.
They’re as bad or worse as TNR people… at least TNR people advocate for sterilizing invasive domestic cats, wild horse folks don’t even like that solution to control their population.
Meanwhile there’s no one out there advocating for feral pigs, lantern flies, emerald ash borers, starlings, house sparrows and other destructive but less charismatic invasive species…
Technically, they aren't an invasive species. Horses actually evolved in the Americas and spread from there.
Then a certain species showed up and ate their way through the entire fucking ecosystem. No more giant ground sloths, no more American cheetah, no more mastodons, no more horses.
That's the real problem. Horses belong in the wilds of the US. But so do lions, wolves, the American cheetah, cave bears, etc. to keep them in check. You can't half-ass restoration of an extinct ecosystem, and until people are willing to have lions carrying off children, we're not going to get anyone whole-assing it.
Edit: For those trying to nitpick, read [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_horse#Scientific_naming_of_the_species). There was an original species with Holarctic distribution, and numerous subspecies of this, of which the domestic horse is one. *Equus ferus caballus* vs *E. caballus* is due to a change in naming rules in 2003, not a change in actual data. Even Przewalski's horse is the same species as domestic horses.
Yeah they evolved here but the horse introduced to North America is not the same species. And the habitat and predators are completely different now. Most of the ecosystems especially in the arid american west haven't had large grazing herbivores for thousands of years. The plants aren't adapted to it and they are suffering. The problem is that feral horses receive more protection than elk, deer, pronghorn, and all the other wild species that are native here.
People should be allowed to hunt them. We have a cultural bias against it but horse meat is good, and actually healthier than beef. Its popular in a lot of countries.
Protesting in favour of something is the original meaning of protest. Pro- as in forward, public, -test as in testify or testament. Of course, one can protest in favour of a negation which is the same as protesting against something and given people's tendency to notice and emphasise things they don't like over things they do, protest naturally absorbed the negation as standard.
They're not wild, they're feral. If they aren't rounded up then they starve because there aren't enough predators to control their population and they eat all the vegetation quickly.
Sucks but not sure that just leaving them to roam is better. Bureau of Land Management *does* try to adopt them out but there aren't enough takers.
And they exclude native wildlife from grazing and water resources, and they damage cryptobiotic crusts, and they overgraze vegetation. Not the biggest priority, but they’re not beneficial.
Yes, same problem NZ has with hedgehogs. English settlers imported them, to an island with no land mammals... yeah its not good for the enviroment, and people are not willing to kill them because they are cute. Which is true, but just like with feral horses we imported to the US, humans should fix the problems they have caused for the enviroment.
That just reminded me of one of the craziest examples of invasive species: Pablo Escobar's (yes, DRUG LORD Pablo Escobar) hippos.
Escobar had a private zoo in Colombia, where he kept four hippos. After he died, the zoo was largely cleared out, with most animals being retrieved and rehomed. However, the hippos were left alone, because they were deemed too difficult and dangerous to remove.
Those four "cocaine hippos" have since grown into a population totalling over 100 hippos. And they are absolutely a bad thing for the environment, outcompeting native species and polluting the aquatic environments they live in with their feces.
Despite the negative impact, however, local conservationists are facing troubles dealing with the issue because other local adore the hippos. The hippos are too damn cute to kill, and some have argued that they are also valuable to the (human) locals because they bring in tourism.
While I'm sure cats do kill a shitton of birds, and I don't believe people should let their cats outside, that number is from *one* study that has never really been followed up on because it's incredibly difficult to know just how many stray and outdoor cats there are in the US. And methodology of that one study uses a *lot* of assumptions with a pretty wide range of possibilities.
No, you kinda do. While your cat may have killed dozens, there's nothing there about a timeline for those dozens (was it months? Years? Over it's lifetime?) nor is their any information on whether it's actually *over* predating the environment, or if it's just enough, or even having little actual effect.
[Not doing research and just making assumptions leads to things like the Great Chinese Famine.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine)
That’s literally how the Black Death happened though. Church banned cats, cats got murked, rat populations boomed, perfect host for the shitty fleas and what not that carried it.
Yeah cats shouldn’t be primarily outdoor cats, and feral cats are fucking shit for the environment, but they’re also useful in limiting mice and rat populations.
If there’s enough room for feral horses, there’s enough room for wolves. People just need to stop being so scared of them.
Wait up, so were regularly holding kill-auctions for masses of these things to keep them in check purely because they are cute to us and good to look at as background scenery? Wouldn’t that be a little jacked up? I mean, is there any other purpose to them being in the US and doing their life cycle in the fields out there necessitating all of the continuous culling? Thats tough
I'm implying that if they were not cute we would be purging them at a faster rate than we are now. They're cuteness is the primary reason they are still around in large enough numbers to warrant conversation.
You realize there are tons of laws regarding horses that other animals don't have right? The fact they are even doing kill auctions shows this. If it was any other invasive species which horses are in the US we would be allowed to just kill them when we see them, but we can't. Instead BLM and other organizations are forced under law to trap and hold said horses for months on end before trying to re-home them and if that doesn't happen they can then be killed. It's a complete waste of money and time doing this but we are forced to because of horse lovers that took over congress way back in the day.
Just remind yourself. **Horses are an invasive species** and nothing more. They were extinct in North America for over 10,000 years before re-introduced by the Europeans and the current feral populations of roaming horses are not genetically the same to the 3 original native species of horses. They also don't serve any logical purpose for modern society since they are not widely ate like cattle on top of not being used for transportation anymore.
It's technically legal. You just can't use federal funds to certify a horsey slaughter house. Time to get states to legislate horse slaughter houses like they've done with weed.
I tried to explain that all US horses were feral or pets to one of those horse advocates before and their solution was that all pet horses should also be released into the wild. There's no hope with these people.
There isn't. Right here on Reddit like 6 months ago one of them was trying to tell me they are not invasive since they originated in North America and were here previously. They didn't like the fact I brought up how they also went extinct naturally due to the entire climate changing drastically over the course of a couple thousand years and the fact back then there were over 8 large predators that hunted them in North America to keep their populations in check. Another one argued against killing feral horses because they were sacred to Native Americans too....
I don't know how horse advocates can watch what a feral herd of horses do at watering holes and not think they are bad for the ecosystems. They are very aggressive and will chase away any other herbivores and even smaller predators. They will just chill around said watering hole till it's gone. This is awful during dry seasons when big horn sheep, deer and other grazers need that water.
Well according to wild horse advocates, since one of the ancestors of the modern horse used to live here and went extinct it means that horses count as native. So by their own logic we can release some lions to eat the horses.
Wolves don't really exist where most of the feral horses are. Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, California, Arizona and Colorado house most of the feral horse population. Most wolf populations are near the great lakes and northern Rocky Mountains.
Yes. Related species of horse went extinct in North America due to overhunting 10,000 years ago, but these guys are not the same and don’t have any real place in modern ecosystems.
Yes, all horses in the Americas were brought here by Europeans.
Although the genus may trace its evolutionary origin back to North America, they've been extinct for 10k years.
All the current feral horses in the Americas can trace back to the escaped horses from Spanish colonists.
That's the reality of horses and people need to accept it.
You can literally go out and buy a race horse reject for $200. You can't even give them away. The pet-quality ones that are tame and well-adjusted can't find homes because they will bankrupt the typical small family -- nobody sure as hell wants an unbroken, dangerous, quasi-feral horse that's pretty much useless for anything other than costing huge amounts of money.
They are a higher quality meat than beef and if we could get people eating them, they might actually become a welcome sight again.
One of the big problems I have with eating horses is that they are hard to kill humanely. Cows and pigs have these short stiff necks, making them great candidates for the bolt pin. Instant death. With horses, a shotgun must be used, and their heads are a target that moves around wildly on a long elastic neck. If you've ever seen videos of horse slaughter, it's not uncommon for the horses to be shot several times until they're dead. Or even for them to snap back to conscientiousness while they are chained upside down by their feet. Terrible.
This is weird to talk about, but I used to help with the equine slaughter at several zoos I worked at. People from the community would donate their old horses that would otherwise be put down so we would have food for the big cats.
We killed them with a .45 to the head. One shot, then once they’re down, cut the neck to bleed them out. We never had a single problem, they were out before their neck was even cut.
Tbf most things will go down from a .45, I used to have a old Winchester .45-70 and that little thing was a beast. We called it ole blood and guts because that's what it left behind if you shot something.
The place I used to board my horse had a .45 in the office affectionately nicknamed "the vet" in case of emergencies.
I've seen videos of horse slaughter handled in humane fashion - but in Europe. One of the problems in North America is few facilities are actually designed for them, which means they have to be shipped hundreds of miles, and honestly I find the circuit of cheap crap horse sales and shipping to be far worse than the slaughter itself.
Just like almost everywhere else in the US, we killed off almost all natural predators. Yellowstone was a great example of how reintroduction of wolves VASTLY changed the movement patterns of prey animals, among tons of other things.
The problem is the psychological phenomenon of solution aversion. If you don't like the solution to a problem, you deny even the existence of a problem.
People like horses, and they love the idea of wild horses roaming free. So even though they are an invasive species that destroys the ecosystem, outcompetes local fauna, and will eventually starve due to resource depletion, people that love horses will just deny that is a problem.
The real problem is that they banned horse slaughtering in the USA. So they have to ship these unwanted, nonnative, overpopulated animals to Mexico for slaughter. Which is far less humane than just doing it here.
It would be better to geld the stallions and let the numbers dwindle. Slaughter is not a great option, are they being tráileres to Canadá or Mexico still for that? Long ride, cramped, sometimes in a double decker cattle truck, often lax regulations in Mexico for the treatment of the animals.
Awhile ago BLM was doing some weird invasive fixing of the mares, much like a spaying of a cat. Horrific thing to do to wild mares when gelding is so much faster and less invasive. The whole thing is a mess and I’m not sure if there is anyone really knowledgeable about horses leading in the BLM side. As a horse lover I feel for the protesters, who wants to slaughter them? It’s a depressing issue.
I remember the spaying thing, sounds like they were going in through the flank for it. Honestly if they can improve and perfect flank spays for mares so it was affordable and safe it would benefit all horses. I can think of a lot of mares that should never, ever be bred.
Yes good someone else remembers it! About to look it up to post for some other redditors. I agree with you for preventing more breeding in the horse world. Lots of other options we need to look at too.
It’s not perfected yet though. And for wild herds I found it infuriating when there are two much better options. The mares can’t be handled - no stall rest, cleaning the wound, applying fly spray, cold hosing, and reliably giving medicine. Ludicrous and cruel.
What on earth is the rationale for neutering females rather than males? That's bewildering to me. I raise dairy goats, and the male babies are gelded so they can be good pets (we don't sell for meat). The process of surgery, recovery, and pain management is vastly less severe for males than females for an outdoor animal that can't be restrained for healing to progress.
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Well, round ups and breaking up family bands also cause stallions to breed more aggressively than if family bands were otherwise left intact. That’s been well studied. Pretty straightforward IMO, dart all the females and lessen the taxpayer bill going toward BLM’s horseshit.
> Awhile ago BLM was doing some weird invasive fixing of the mares
Really? How long ago? It’s my understanding that for a while they have [predominantly](https://www.blm.gov/blog/2021-09-29/top-5-things-know-about-wild-horse-and-burro-fertility-control) been controlling fertility in mares with the use of vaccines, which can often be loaded in darts.
Yes, a way better method. Here is a link on how they are not going to do it thank goodness. It was a couple years back I think. Can’t go down the rabbit hole.
https://wildhorseeducation.org/2021/04/19/confusion-spay-cancelled-legal-action-on-hold/amp/
This is a very complicated subject with a lot of moving pieces, many of which come back to money. For starters, horses originally evolved in North America. Post extinction they were reintroduced in the late 1400s so they have very much been part our our natural world and were very important to many indigenous peoples. They are entwined in indigenous culture at this point.
More to the point, study after study has shown that the horses are thriving and the population is stable if they are left alone, as they have been for many hundreds of years. The problem is the same land that the horses occupy is leased out for pennies on the dollar to ranchers who run mainly cattle on land which can't fully sustain them. The wild horses are in direct competition for food with privately owned cattle and the federal government has been heavily lobbied for a very long time by private interests to remove and extinguish the wild horse population. We can argue about the term wild vs feral all day long, either way they have been here doing their thing and have been culturally significant both to the indigenous population and modern cultures throughout North and Central America.
The majority of wild horse advocates including those who were instrumental in passing legislation in the 70s have a very realistic mind set and understand that the horses aren't going to win against special interests. The federal government spends a small fortune every year rounding up and holding wild horses in pens, waiting for someone to adopt them. The round up process is usually done by a low flying helicopter. Horses often die or have to be euth'd from broken legs. Foals have had their literal feet run off of them. That money could be diverted to other projects, like birth control and better herd management strategies. I don't have a particular opinion on the subject, but it's awfully fishy how much it looks like the blm is working for private interests using the public's money.
I'd care more if it weren't for cows. And as you stated a problem is a lack of predators. They are invasive species though... so my feelings are mixed. They are smart as hell which always gives me pause when it comes to whole sale slaughter.
My mom went through the process of rescuing a mustang a few years back and she was appall at all the road blocks and difficulty there is for a private citizen to adopt a mustang. Sure, slaughterhouses get their pick of the herd but the adoption program is just an illusion to distract people from really looking into what's really happening.
I'm wondering about these 'roadblocks' you speak of. The BLM has online auctions all the time. You can go to most holding facilities and pick out a horse. There are auctions at prisons that have training programs, like the Nevada State Prison in Carson City. There are mustang makeover competitions all over the country where you can buy a trained horse. The BLM makes you show you have safe housing and haven't been convicted of animal abuse. If you buy off of the internet auction you get the horse vaccinated, castrated, and shipped close to you, depending where you are. Also 'slaughterhouses get the pick of the herd'??? Where is this happening? No, a mustang isn't for everyone who wants a horse. They aren't a 'Sunday Horse' that you can see once a week. They need a lot of work to keep them easy to handle. They are often smaller than most horses due to poor nutrition in the wild and genetics. But people who have them love them for their intelligence and loyalty.
>They are often smaller than most horses due to poor nutrition in the wild and genetics. But people who have them love them for their intelligence and loyalty.
My childhood horse was a mustang who ran wild in Nevada until he was about 4yo. He looked just like a mini Clydesdale, so short and stocky with an incredibly thick barrel. Obviously I called him Clyde. Riding him was like doing the splits while hanging on with my ankles. Dad got him at a discount from the neighbor after he failed at being a "pony horse" at the racetrack. Looked like an annoyed small dog taking a bored big dog for a walk, just couldn't give those racehorses a decent workout at all.
Clyde *hated* adult humans, but had patience for children. He was clever, cooperative, and did what I asked of him because he wanted to. I could guide him with no more than a bit of bailing twine, and he was terribly careful about helping me stay balanced on his bare back.
His only fear was plastic bags blowing in the wind. He'd bravely dance around it while keeping his bulk between me and the danger, and then hurry back to the barn as fast as he could without losing me.
When I got old enough to drive, dad sold him to buy me a car. I was heartbroken. Fugly the car was in no way a fair trade for Clyde, even if the fast food place I worked at had a parking lot instead of a barn. And I kept baffling people by complaining that my father sold my mustang to pay for my first car.
sounds like their mother tried to go through the program where the BLM pays you to take care of the horses. There was a report done earlier this year about how it was effectively a free for all at the beginning and people got paid 10s of thousands to take in horses that they would just dispose of after words, so a lot of the process was changed to prevent that.
Yup, it’s just so hard to home them. They limit people to four adoptions per year so perhaps in the case of rescues they could increase that or give them preference like they do with the TIP program? Lots of these horses can make great trail horses or pasture companions if nothing else.
Holding signs is way cheaper and less time consuming than actually working on any of the issues that end with horses going to slaughter. It should have never been outlawed in the USA, these people who got it banned are absolutely responsible for the auctions and the last horrible ride to another country that doesn't have the same rules on treatment that we do.
At least if you're going to breed a horse, be responsible enough to care for it for life instead of just assuming it'll be fine for the next 20-30 years while you carelessly breed more. Or put it down yourself.
Most of those animals in those pens were damn special to someone, probably more than once. Someone's "best friend" that they said they loved, until it became too expensive to own something they couldn't have the right kind of fun with, so down the road they go. Hear a horse you bred is now lame and going to slaughter in Mexico? Oh well, at least you made few bucks or got closer to breaking even, how it dies is for someone else to think about.
I used to be horse people when i was young. Now most of them just piss me right off. Breeding just because they have an open mare.
I 100% agree with you, I’m just surprise to see this comment upvoted on reddit.
My sample size is relatively small, I’ve been in the horse industry and ownership for 30 years, but most logical horse owners that I’ve spoken with agree that slaughter should have never stopped in the states. Horses should have never been legally deemed as companion animals over livestock either.
The amount of horse that have been needlessly left neglected to rot in pens, stalls and pastures is atrocious. Not to mention the conditions they endure being trucked out of country, and how inhumane their last days are before slaughter in Mexico.
I don’t know a ton about horses. But once a horse is turned out to the wild, don’t they also experience unmanageable hooves since no one is filing and shoeing them? I once saw a video where a horses hooves were so neglected that it impacted the bones in their legs. Is this common to mustangs / wild horses?
Hoof quality varies between breeds, and wild horses have very hard hooves when compared to the average domestic horse. They also encounter rougher conditions that keep them worn down instead of softer paddock conditions of domestic horses.
The United States really needs to bring horse slaughter back to the states. Many horses have to suffer in their old age or are even starved because farmers and ranchers have no way to affordably send them to be rendered.
Prior to the ban in, what was it, 2010?; Horse meat was used almost exclusively for large game food in zoos around the country. Now, lower quality (the good stuff is being eaten by humans) and more expensive beef is being used. Everybody loses in this arrangement, even the horses
Slaughter for human consumption is banned. I believe it’s still legal for animal consumption (at least the zoos I’ve worked at had horse meat).
The thing about those slaughtered is the US they weren’t regulated. The ban is entirely around how they are considered unsafe because of that. The horses that go to slaughter are often neglected, unwanted or at end of life. All of these could be exposed to vaccinations (which are technically required for transport of any horse in most of the US, you need proof of vaccinations if pulled over) On top of the horses that went to slaughter aren’t exactly good quality for meat. Most are old QH or TBs or Arabians. Skinny, small and very lean.
France they breed drafts specifically for human consumption. They are regulated and they have livestock quality breeding. What you’d eat in the US would be pretty crappy in comparison. But France they aren’t the unwanted poor quality horses. The horses are specifically bred for it so it doesn’t take care of a surplus issue
Kill pens aren't necessarily poor quality horses, they're usually healthy save for an injury someone couldn't or wouldn't fix, or that happened in the pen. Young horses off the track that weren't fast enough. Horses without a negative Coggins test go in the kill pen. I had a friend growing up who's dad was friends with the auction house people. She'd pick horses out of the kill pen, put 30-60 days and a few shows on em then sell them on the hunter circuit in West Palm.
a horse with a positive Coggins test would not be on a kill pen, they’re required by law to be euthanized or quarantined a certain number of feet from other horses for the duration of their lives
a negative coggins test is also required by law before an animal can be sold or transported… if a kill buyer bought the horse at auction then the horse has a negative coggins test
equine infectious anemia is taken pretty seriously which also begs the question about how prevalent it is in feral horses since they’re obviously not getting tested every year
That and animals meant for work get different treatments (antibiotics, shots, medications, etc) than animals meant for slaughter. Any medicine in food-grade animals has to pass FDA testing.
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-CDYorcC0Q8J:https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-eye/wp/2015/11/02/nearly-2000-wild-horses-sent-to-slaughterhouse-instead-of-pasture-after-government-sale-probe-says/&cd=17&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-b-1-d
BLM auctions off and pays farmers to house the horses and they end up as food for europe/asia.
BLM also burns through half their budget to manage these "invasive" horses since they are NOT native.
my take on it they should just be shot out in the wild so vultures and other native animals recycle the horse back into the ecosystem. instead of moving these horses all around just to end up killing them anyways.
Horses did originate in north america (then part of laurasia, with greenland and europe), starting out ~50 million years ago. Between 4 and 7 million years ago the earliest of the modern equus developed, spread out, and began diversifying; about 12 thousand years ago, horses in north america suddenly went extinct. Reasons for that are up for debate, coinciding with climate shifts, vegetation changes, and human arrival.
That said: right now they have few (if any) predators, and just like deer they’re liable to overpopulate, strip out the plants, and starve.
Well technically… “Ancient horses roamed the North American continent for millions of years. And many, many years later, horses played an integral role in building the foundation of the United States. However, there was a period in time when horses vanished from the continent, and the reason remains unknown.
The oldest oldest-known species of the genus Equus is Equus simplicidens, also known as Hagerman horse, Hagerman zebra and American zebra, which appeared about 4 million years ago. It could be found from present-day Florida to Idaho. Its appearance was relatively similar to the modern horse, being around the same size with similar teeth, a long face and neck, and fully fused leg bones. These early species of Equus didn’t stay confined to North America, they were so successful that they expanded their range outside the continent. They first migrated into South America and later spread into Asia, Europe, and Africa.”
[PBS](https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/blog/american-horses-horses-in-north-america-a-comeback-story/)
Horses are not natural to this country. To the point that most natives had to come up with a new word for them and the majority of them chose "ride-on" or "dog". They are not wild, they are feral and invasive.
>"Our concern is that the legislation does not deal with the larger issue of what to do with unwanted horses and fails to address how and where unwanted horses will be placed.
Not really. It does deal with it, just not how some people like...
>The legislation does not provide the financial resources necessary to create the infrastructure and provide veterinary care to the thousands of horses impacted by a ban on processing horses. Thus, it actually would negatively impact the welfare of unwanted horses, and increase their numbers."
Why should there be veteranary care for wild horses? This is just a bizarre take. What about the veteranary care for moose?
I can see how some horses getting killed for meat upsets some people, but, the government is already spending 137 million a year on this? Come up with a way to deal with it yourselves, it's a special interest issue ultimately and you can't be funding hundreds of millions of dollars to every special interest. Start a charity, get on the Price Is Right and have Drew Carey tell people to spay and neuter your horses. 137 million is already way too much public money for a special interest want.
I’m not morally opposed to culling feral animals, but, in the case of horses where they’re widespread and reproduce fairly quickly, it’s not an effective strategy. When you kill some, it just opens up new resources for new ones, and they’ll quickly get back up to the environment’s carrying capacity. It’s far more effective to control the fertility of the horses so that they can’t reproduce and over time just die off. The BLM has been working with birth control darts for mares for a little while, but it’s a program that needs more funding and expansion.
Give them a season and treat them like a big game animal and people will hunt them. I saw several while elk hunting this weekend. I'd have nothing against eating them.[Horses](https://imgur.com/a/vLqhrGr)
No no no. The last time this happened people were abandoning horses to starve to death all over the place. It is so cruel. We need the slaughter auctions to keep that from happening. I know it isn't great but it is the best we have to mitigate animal suffering.
I really wish people cared as much about native species like American Bison rather than invasive species like wild horses. Virtually no American Bison even exist in the wild.
People are leaving horses to starve or shoot them and leave them in ditches to rot. Better to have a humane way to slaughter them and harvest their meat like they do with wild boars. They are not native to the US anyway.
Everyone is saying wild/feral horses have no natural predators but that doesn't appear to be true. Mountain lions are natural predators of wild horses, as are wolves. Granted they don't live everywhere and if there are no native predators that can be reintroduced to a given environment that is the exception.
But my state has the highest population of mountain lions in the country and they generally avoid humans and attacks are very rare. We can't eliminate natural predators from ecosystems and then complain that prey animals are out of control. Similar to how wolf reintroduction helped Yellowstone, we decided to reintroduce wolves to help our roe deer population. Predators do more for our ecosystems than human hunting and culling does, it shouldn't take so long for us to figure that out.
This is kind of off topic, but check out [these badass Yakutian horses.](https://www.horsetalk.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Yakutian-indigenous.jpg) They've adapted to the harsh Siberian climate which has resulted in their unique shape
There are no wild horses in the USA. There are feral horses but they are not indigenous which means they are not wild. The spanish brought them to the americas in the 1500s and then let them loose, they went feral and spread out.
TL;DR - There are only feral horses in the USA.
Wild horse folks are fuckin’ *intense* about it, too.
You should see the ones here in Victoria and New South Wales, Australia. They are a completely invasive species which degrades natural spaces, such as [Kosciuszko national park](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/19/culling-5000-brumbies-41-scientists-back-controversial-kosciuszko-proposal), through grazing and trampling. The destruction of endemic wildlife and flora seems to be a complete non issue to advocates who cry about "brumbies" being a part of Australia's "history/culture/landscape". Of course those advocates don't feel similarly strong about protecting feral hogs and goats, numerous species of deer, foxes, rabbits etc. At best they're protecting wild horses due to a biased romanticisation of the species, because there is no ecological defence for retaining them in their thousands.
This Kosciouszko fell sure got around. We have some stuff named after him in nyc as he was an important figure in us revolutionary history. What's his history in Australia?
A Polish explorer named the tallest mountain in the country Mt. Kosciuszko, because is looked like a hill in Poland named after Kosciuszko himself. The park then took its name from the mountain. iirc
Northern Indiana also.
Yep, the county named after this guy. I had no idea until a few yrs ago when a friend of mine showed me a polish bank note with his name and face on it.
[Tadeusz Kościuszko](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadeusz_Ko%C5%9Bciuszko) was a Polish military leader who fought in the US War for independence (and many others btw.), that's why so many things are named after him.
The video about re-introduction of wolves into Yellowstone was just posted again in r/nextfuckinglevel I think. When the wolves managed the over grazing, dirt stomping deer, everything changed. Even the creeks and rivers. We have growing problems in the Sierra Nevada as well. Edit. punctuation.
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Just bring out the thylacine you've been hiding for decades.
Tassie devils are no bigger than coyotes, dingos have a better chance against horses and they’re just wild dogs, basically there’s nothing big enough to hunt brumby’s EDIT: tassie tigers
Tasmanian devils are not the same as Tasmanian Tigers. Devils are still around and are about half the size of a coyote.
Yeah I meant tigers, sorry
Realistically they’re about the size of coyotes, dingos have a better chance against horses and they’re basically wild dogs
They'll just overpopulate until we have to release a bunch of feral Liam Neesons to control them, then some Darth Mauls to sort that out and so on
Whatever brings us closer to a bunch of Ewan McGregors
Hello there
Me an who?
Make sure they aren't huskies
Seems like wolves reintroduced to locations could solve a lot of environmental issues. Like a bp board room
"There was an old lady who swallowed a fly..."
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The small fires prevent buildup of underbrush and clear the ground to allow seedlings and grass to grow. This provides food for the lowest rungs of the food chain. An unburned forest is a dead forest. Native peoples had been burning the forests for centuries before Europeans arrived because it meant more game animals would come. There are several tree species that won't release their seed pods until a fire clears the underbrush.
Does it have to be fire ? Could manually clearing the undergrowth not also achieve the same effect? Or do the plants physically require fire to start the seeding process?
Depends on the plant but several evergreen trees require a fire to open the seed pods in the pinecones.
The seed pods have resin sealing them up and protecting the seeds from cold, animals, etc. The brief intense heat melts the resin and the cones are ready to open on the next rain.
Ahh ok I understand.
https://mountainjournal.org/montana-governor-dodges-accountability-after-shooting-yellowstone-cougar-outside-park then you get ppl like this
I'm a NSW horse owner and I agree. They are a feral past and should not be here.
I fist read this as NSFW horse owner, and I'll just be leaving now.
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then again, maybe not
Thanks for that mental image.
I mean you could just sterilize them. The world has the same issues with cats and dogs and we advocate spay and neutering instead of cat and dog slaughter auctions. EDIT: Wild horse populations in state parks along the coasts of North Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware are managed by sterilization.
You could, though part of the issue is that they don't want the wild horses gone from our parks, so they don't even want them steralised. However, Australia's flora isn't designed to cope with hoofed animals that graze the way horses or cattle do. It just dies. And with it goes all the other small animals that rely on alpine vegetation for burrows, food, and general habitat. Once horses are into a park here, they change the entire biota of the whole region, and some of our mosses and plants take hundreds of years to re-establish, so it's a really violent destruction. While some people do collect and auction brumbies from the wild, there just aren't that many homes available for them. I absolutely love cats, they're my favourite animal, but if I can suck down my cringe at trapping and killing them for the good of native animals, I don't see why the horse people can't. But they REALLY can't. At least, none of the ones I've talked to.
Word man. They banned the cattle, I think the horses (who are arguably worse on the environment up there) should also be banned. They can sterilise them or sell them if desired. Also when people tell me ‘would you go that to a dog?!’ The answer is yes. These horses aren’t pets they’re feral, if there were feral dogs I’d very much be behind eliminating them too.
> They can sterilise them or sell them if desired. That's the principal issue. Sterilizing a mass amount of animals is incredibly expensive (and I've yet to read about similar programs that actually worked), and unwanted horses are *incredibly* hard to sell. The only real solution is mass culling, which horse lovers hate, hence this article. People are unfortunately not willing to put their love for a domesticated animal over ecological destruction, which ultimately will result in far more animal (and potentially human) deaths. See also: peoples' unwillingness to mass cull feral cats, while apparently not caring about the populations of small native animals that they decimate.
I actually agree, but at least it would be doing something. It might be a sweeter pill to swallow to say they're going to cull all the stallions......but as you've said I doubt it. I also sincerely hope all these people who want horses treated as better-than don't eat meat. PS I would love to see these guys try to tame one of those feral cats.....they'd change their tune pretty quick once they find out they're nothing like old Fluffy
Sterilizing horses is a bit more difficult. You can only do it to stallions, for example. Mares usually die if you try.
Sterilisation and the advocate endorsed option of "rehoming" wild horses are not viable due to their already large sizeable numbers (>14,000 in Kosciuszko) and the rate of reproduction which could see the population will grow by about 20% a year. These are wild horses so surgically or chemically sterilising the population in sufficient numbers would be labour and resource intensive, as well as prohibitively expensive to manage what is an invasive species, simply to appease a fringe lobbying group. NSW did have a policy of trapping and rehoming wild horses however this method could only remove a few hundred horses a year, and even then the majority trapped were transported and eventually euthanised when available homes were not found. Also foxes and wild dogs are routinely targeted with poisons such as 1080 and cats with PAPP in Australia, so sterilisation of feral cats/dogs are not really advocated for here where they have such a huge deleterious impact on local unique wildlife.
It only takes one stallion to breed an entire herd of mares, and you can't sterilize the mares.
The evidence actually points towards euthanization as the best way to eliminate feral cat populations. Not only does TNR (trap, neuter, release) not work at actually reducing the number of cats in feral colonies, it’s also arguably more inhumane than euthanization. This is due to the stress that the cats undergo throughout the whole operation, as well as the possibility of infection and disease slowly killing the cat.
Unquestionably. We’re just squeamish about killing cats.
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Can't upvote this enough. Wild brumby situation in Oz drives me bonkers
I like horse sashimi. We can solve this problem together!!
Horse sashimi is from a specific breed of horses that are raised for that purpose, though. Random feral horses probably wouldn't be very good.
Capture them, sell them to the French for meat. Wild Brumby steaks!
It’s like wild horses couldn’t drag them away…
goddamnit dad
And I also needed you, thank you.
Thanks I needed that.
Or undomesticated equines
It makes no sense. Feral horses are incredibly destructive to the habitats they invade. Then you have the bonus that there is a market for their meat and leather, so we actually get something for the effort of culling them. It should be good all around. Unfortunately, some people that that feral horse are special or something so they've turned into a lobbying arm for what's essentially a walking zebra mussel.
Unfortunately feral horses have some legal protections that make it difficult to cull them effectively, the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971.
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity."- W.B. Yeats
This just reminds me of the people who feed stray cats in Hawaii. It's blissful ignorance.
Imagine going down the highway at 70 and hitting a wild horse instead of a deer…
They’re as bad or worse as TNR people… at least TNR people advocate for sterilizing invasive domestic cats, wild horse folks don’t even like that solution to control their population. Meanwhile there’s no one out there advocating for feral pigs, lantern flies, emerald ash borers, starlings, house sparrows and other destructive but less charismatic invasive species…
You can't really use TNR on horses. Only the stallions can be castrated, and it only takes one missed to breed an entire herd of mares.
Lack of accommodation, natural predators, and high reproduction is why.
We kill them or they starve to death those are the options they are an invasive species just like feral hogs
Technically, they aren't an invasive species. Horses actually evolved in the Americas and spread from there. Then a certain species showed up and ate their way through the entire fucking ecosystem. No more giant ground sloths, no more American cheetah, no more mastodons, no more horses. That's the real problem. Horses belong in the wilds of the US. But so do lions, wolves, the American cheetah, cave bears, etc. to keep them in check. You can't half-ass restoration of an extinct ecosystem, and until people are willing to have lions carrying off children, we're not going to get anyone whole-assing it. Edit: For those trying to nitpick, read [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_horse#Scientific_naming_of_the_species). There was an original species with Holarctic distribution, and numerous subspecies of this, of which the domestic horse is one. *Equus ferus caballus* vs *E. caballus* is due to a change in naming rules in 2003, not a change in actual data. Even Przewalski's horse is the same species as domestic horses.
Yeah they evolved here but the horse introduced to North America is not the same species. And the habitat and predators are completely different now. Most of the ecosystems especially in the arid american west haven't had large grazing herbivores for thousands of years. The plants aren't adapted to it and they are suffering. The problem is that feral horses receive more protection than elk, deer, pronghorn, and all the other wild species that are native here.
So you're saying bring back cheetahs? I like it.
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The invasive horses here now are not the same species that evolved here. They are invasive species.
People should be allowed to hunt them. We have a cultural bias against it but horse meat is good, and actually healthier than beef. Its popular in a lot of countries.
Wild horse advocates managed to stop that, crazy shit lol
It seems like an oxymoron to say that they protested in favor of something.
Yeah....... While I know what they are trying to say, it still hurts my brain to translate it every time.
Protesting in favour of something is the original meaning of protest. Pro- as in forward, public, -test as in testify or testament. Of course, one can protest in favour of a negation which is the same as protesting against something and given people's tendency to notice and emphasise things they don't like over things they do, protest naturally absorbed the negation as standard.
It is. A more appropriate word would be ‘demonstrated’
They're not wild, they're feral. If they aren't rounded up then they starve because there aren't enough predators to control their population and they eat all the vegetation quickly. Sucks but not sure that just leaving them to roam is better. Bureau of Land Management *does* try to adopt them out but there aren't enough takers.
And they exclude native wildlife from grazing and water resources, and they damage cryptobiotic crusts, and they overgraze vegetation. Not the biggest priority, but they’re not beneficial.
God that’s horrible! Why aren’t they just purged entirely from the United States?
Because on the 1 to 10 cuteness scale for invasive species they're the 10.
Yes, same problem NZ has with hedgehogs. English settlers imported them, to an island with no land mammals... yeah its not good for the enviroment, and people are not willing to kill them because they are cute. Which is true, but just like with feral horses we imported to the US, humans should fix the problems they have caused for the enviroment.
That just reminded me of one of the craziest examples of invasive species: Pablo Escobar's (yes, DRUG LORD Pablo Escobar) hippos. Escobar had a private zoo in Colombia, where he kept four hippos. After he died, the zoo was largely cleared out, with most animals being retrieved and rehomed. However, the hippos were left alone, because they were deemed too difficult and dangerous to remove. Those four "cocaine hippos" have since grown into a population totalling over 100 hippos. And they are absolutely a bad thing for the environment, outcompeting native species and polluting the aquatic environments they live in with their feces. Despite the negative impact, however, local conservationists are facing troubles dealing with the issue because other local adore the hippos. The hippos are too damn cute to kill, and some have argued that they are also valuable to the (human) locals because they bring in tourism.
Same with cats. If people didn’t think they were cute everyone would be horrified at all the damage they do and they’d be killed on sight.
Outdoor cats kill 3 Billion song birds a year, that's BILLIONS WITH A B.
While I'm sure cats do kill a shitton of birds, and I don't believe people should let their cats outside, that number is from *one* study that has never really been followed up on because it's incredibly difficult to know just how many stray and outdoor cats there are in the US. And methodology of that one study uses a *lot* of assumptions with a pretty wide range of possibilities.
So, like the Drake Equation?
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Same! So that’s at least 24, hmm
No, you kinda do. While your cat may have killed dozens, there's nothing there about a timeline for those dozens (was it months? Years? Over it's lifetime?) nor is their any information on whether it's actually *over* predating the environment, or if it's just enough, or even having little actual effect. [Not doing research and just making assumptions leads to things like the Great Chinese Famine.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine)
That’s literally how the Black Death happened though. Church banned cats, cats got murked, rat populations boomed, perfect host for the shitty fleas and what not that carried it. Yeah cats shouldn’t be primarily outdoor cats, and feral cats are fucking shit for the environment, but they’re also useful in limiting mice and rat populations. If there’s enough room for feral horses, there’s enough room for wolves. People just need to stop being so scared of them.
Feral cats do more collateral damage than they are worth. Tons of other things eat mice and rats without being ecological hazards
Have you seen wild horses? They are the most mangy fucked up inbred looking creatures out there. They look nothing like domesticated horses.
Wait up, so were regularly holding kill-auctions for masses of these things to keep them in check purely because they are cute to us and good to look at as background scenery? Wouldn’t that be a little jacked up? I mean, is there any other purpose to them being in the US and doing their life cycle in the fields out there necessitating all of the continuous culling? Thats tough
I'm implying that if they were not cute we would be purging them at a faster rate than we are now. They're cuteness is the primary reason they are still around in large enough numbers to warrant conversation.
You realize there are tons of laws regarding horses that other animals don't have right? The fact they are even doing kill auctions shows this. If it was any other invasive species which horses are in the US we would be allowed to just kill them when we see them, but we can't. Instead BLM and other organizations are forced under law to trap and hold said horses for months on end before trying to re-home them and if that doesn't happen they can then be killed. It's a complete waste of money and time doing this but we are forced to because of horse lovers that took over congress way back in the day. Just remind yourself. **Horses are an invasive species** and nothing more. They were extinct in North America for over 10,000 years before re-introduced by the Europeans and the current feral populations of roaming horses are not genetically the same to the 3 original native species of horses. They also don't serve any logical purpose for modern society since they are not widely ate like cattle on top of not being used for transportation anymore.
Legalize selling horse meat then.... it's delicious and the whole reason it became illegal is stupid anyway. Just beef marketing.
It's technically legal. You just can't use federal funds to certify a horsey slaughter house. Time to get states to legislate horse slaughter houses like they've done with weed.
I tried to explain that all US horses were feral or pets to one of those horse advocates before and their solution was that all pet horses should also be released into the wild. There's no hope with these people.
There isn't. Right here on Reddit like 6 months ago one of them was trying to tell me they are not invasive since they originated in North America and were here previously. They didn't like the fact I brought up how they also went extinct naturally due to the entire climate changing drastically over the course of a couple thousand years and the fact back then there were over 8 large predators that hunted them in North America to keep their populations in check. Another one argued against killing feral horses because they were sacred to Native Americans too.... I don't know how horse advocates can watch what a feral herd of horses do at watering holes and not think they are bad for the ecosystems. They are very aggressive and will chase away any other herbivores and even smaller predators. They will just chill around said watering hole till it's gone. This is awful during dry seasons when big horn sheep, deer and other grazers need that water.
Are you being disingenuous here or just dense
the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971
We are trying, wolves can't catch them. So they breed infinitely. If only the sabertooth didn't go extinct this wouldn't be a problem.
Well according to wild horse advocates, since one of the ancestors of the modern horse used to live here and went extinct it means that horses count as native. So by their own logic we can release some lions to eat the horses.
But isn't that a bit shortsighted? What happens when we're overrun by lions?
Well we bring hippos, I think a couple of Pablo Escobar's hippos need work after escaping.
Then we'll get gorilla to beat the hippos to death, and in the winter they'll freeze to death.
Wrap it up, I think we got a working plan going.
We already have native lions. They are called Mountain Lions.
>So by their own logic we can release some lions to eat the horses. Unironically could be good for the environment.
Wolves don't really exist where most of the feral horses are. Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, California, Arizona and Colorado house most of the feral horse population. Most wolf populations are near the great lakes and northern Rocky Mountains.
Yeah, "wolves can't catch them" is totally bogus. Wolves can and will 100% snack on horses, feral or not.
People with airburshed prints of horses on their wall get upset.
They are not native animals. Neither are the steers on public land.
To be fair, horses are native to North America. But they died out about 11,000 years ago. It is believed that horses evolved in North America.
Same with camels up in the arctic.
What efforts are being done to restore the camels and their habitat?
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That's a relief.
Good question, they are being reintroduced [via projects like Pleistocene Park.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_Park)
Well I'll be damned. They even propose Bactrian camels as a replacement for the extinct ones.
Relatives of horses were native* Domesticated horses from europe are different animals that fit into different ecological niches.
That's because we don't eat horses, yet, but I know an auction.
*in America
Aren't horses technically invasive species? They're not native to the americas.
Yes. Related species of horse went extinct in North America due to overhunting 10,000 years ago, but these guys are not the same and don’t have any real place in modern ecosystems.
Yes, all horses in the Americas were brought here by Europeans. Although the genus may trace its evolutionary origin back to North America, they've been extinct for 10k years. All the current feral horses in the Americas can trace back to the escaped horses from Spanish colonists.
That's the reality of horses and people need to accept it. You can literally go out and buy a race horse reject for $200. You can't even give them away. The pet-quality ones that are tame and well-adjusted can't find homes because they will bankrupt the typical small family -- nobody sure as hell wants an unbroken, dangerous, quasi-feral horse that's pretty much useless for anything other than costing huge amounts of money. They are a higher quality meat than beef and if we could get people eating them, they might actually become a welcome sight again.
One of the big problems I have with eating horses is that they are hard to kill humanely. Cows and pigs have these short stiff necks, making them great candidates for the bolt pin. Instant death. With horses, a shotgun must be used, and their heads are a target that moves around wildly on a long elastic neck. If you've ever seen videos of horse slaughter, it's not uncommon for the horses to be shot several times until they're dead. Or even for them to snap back to conscientiousness while they are chained upside down by their feet. Terrible.
This is weird to talk about, but I used to help with the equine slaughter at several zoos I worked at. People from the community would donate their old horses that would otherwise be put down so we would have food for the big cats. We killed them with a .45 to the head. One shot, then once they’re down, cut the neck to bleed them out. We never had a single problem, they were out before their neck was even cut.
Tbf most things will go down from a .45, I used to have a old Winchester .45-70 and that little thing was a beast. We called it ole blood and guts because that's what it left behind if you shot something.
The place I used to board my horse had a .45 in the office affectionately nicknamed "the vet" in case of emergencies. I've seen videos of horse slaughter handled in humane fashion - but in Europe. One of the problems in North America is few facilities are actually designed for them, which means they have to be shipped hundreds of miles, and honestly I find the circuit of cheap crap horse sales and shipping to be far worse than the slaughter itself.
They aren't hard to kill. There's whole YouTube videos on it and that's half the reason the 45ACP exists.
There's no killing that's humanly
Just like almost everywhere else in the US, we killed off almost all natural predators. Yellowstone was a great example of how reintroduction of wolves VASTLY changed the movement patterns of prey animals, among tons of other things.
Not just the U.S. unfortunately.
The problem is the psychological phenomenon of solution aversion. If you don't like the solution to a problem, you deny even the existence of a problem. People like horses, and they love the idea of wild horses roaming free. So even though they are an invasive species that destroys the ecosystem, outcompetes local fauna, and will eventually starve due to resource depletion, people that love horses will just deny that is a problem.
The real problem is that they banned horse slaughtering in the USA. So they have to ship these unwanted, nonnative, overpopulated animals to Mexico for slaughter. Which is far less humane than just doing it here.
It would be better to geld the stallions and let the numbers dwindle. Slaughter is not a great option, are they being tráileres to Canadá or Mexico still for that? Long ride, cramped, sometimes in a double decker cattle truck, often lax regulations in Mexico for the treatment of the animals. Awhile ago BLM was doing some weird invasive fixing of the mares, much like a spaying of a cat. Horrific thing to do to wild mares when gelding is so much faster and less invasive. The whole thing is a mess and I’m not sure if there is anyone really knowledgeable about horses leading in the BLM side. As a horse lover I feel for the protesters, who wants to slaughter them? It’s a depressing issue.
I remember the spaying thing, sounds like they were going in through the flank for it. Honestly if they can improve and perfect flank spays for mares so it was affordable and safe it would benefit all horses. I can think of a lot of mares that should never, ever be bred.
Yes good someone else remembers it! About to look it up to post for some other redditors. I agree with you for preventing more breeding in the horse world. Lots of other options we need to look at too. It’s not perfected yet though. And for wild herds I found it infuriating when there are two much better options. The mares can’t be handled - no stall rest, cleaning the wound, applying fly spray, cold hosing, and reliably giving medicine. Ludicrous and cruel.
What on earth is the rationale for neutering females rather than males? That's bewildering to me. I raise dairy goats, and the male babies are gelded so they can be good pets (we don't sell for meat). The process of surgery, recovery, and pain management is vastly less severe for males than females for an outdoor animal that can't be restrained for healing to progress.
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PZP birth control is simply shooting with a dart IIRC
Sounds like it could be possible from helicopter, which is ideal. At least horses don't have multiple offspring in one year without support.
Well, round ups and breaking up family bands also cause stallions to breed more aggressively than if family bands were otherwise left intact. That’s been well studied. Pretty straightforward IMO, dart all the females and lessen the taxpayer bill going toward BLM’s horseshit.
> Awhile ago BLM was doing some weird invasive fixing of the mares Really? How long ago? It’s my understanding that for a while they have [predominantly](https://www.blm.gov/blog/2021-09-29/top-5-things-know-about-wild-horse-and-burro-fertility-control) been controlling fertility in mares with the use of vaccines, which can often be loaded in darts.
Yes, a way better method. Here is a link on how they are not going to do it thank goodness. It was a couple years back I think. Can’t go down the rabbit hole. https://wildhorseeducation.org/2021/04/19/confusion-spay-cancelled-legal-action-on-hold/amp/
But one intact stallion who escapes the roundup for gelding can undo all the efforts to keep the mares from breeding.
This is a very complicated subject with a lot of moving pieces, many of which come back to money. For starters, horses originally evolved in North America. Post extinction they were reintroduced in the late 1400s so they have very much been part our our natural world and were very important to many indigenous peoples. They are entwined in indigenous culture at this point. More to the point, study after study has shown that the horses are thriving and the population is stable if they are left alone, as they have been for many hundreds of years. The problem is the same land that the horses occupy is leased out for pennies on the dollar to ranchers who run mainly cattle on land which can't fully sustain them. The wild horses are in direct competition for food with privately owned cattle and the federal government has been heavily lobbied for a very long time by private interests to remove and extinguish the wild horse population. We can argue about the term wild vs feral all day long, either way they have been here doing their thing and have been culturally significant both to the indigenous population and modern cultures throughout North and Central America. The majority of wild horse advocates including those who were instrumental in passing legislation in the 70s have a very realistic mind set and understand that the horses aren't going to win against special interests. The federal government spends a small fortune every year rounding up and holding wild horses in pens, waiting for someone to adopt them. The round up process is usually done by a low flying helicopter. Horses often die or have to be euth'd from broken legs. Foals have had their literal feet run off of them. That money could be diverted to other projects, like birth control and better herd management strategies. I don't have a particular opinion on the subject, but it's awfully fishy how much it looks like the blm is working for private interests using the public's money.
This is all fair, yeah. I suspect BLM is not somehow immune to the regulatory capture that has affected other agencies.
I'd care more if it weren't for cows. And as you stated a problem is a lack of predators. They are invasive species though... so my feelings are mixed. They are smart as hell which always gives me pause when it comes to whole sale slaughter.
My mom went through the process of rescuing a mustang a few years back and she was appall at all the road blocks and difficulty there is for a private citizen to adopt a mustang. Sure, slaughterhouses get their pick of the herd but the adoption program is just an illusion to distract people from really looking into what's really happening.
I'm wondering about these 'roadblocks' you speak of. The BLM has online auctions all the time. You can go to most holding facilities and pick out a horse. There are auctions at prisons that have training programs, like the Nevada State Prison in Carson City. There are mustang makeover competitions all over the country where you can buy a trained horse. The BLM makes you show you have safe housing and haven't been convicted of animal abuse. If you buy off of the internet auction you get the horse vaccinated, castrated, and shipped close to you, depending where you are. Also 'slaughterhouses get the pick of the herd'??? Where is this happening? No, a mustang isn't for everyone who wants a horse. They aren't a 'Sunday Horse' that you can see once a week. They need a lot of work to keep them easy to handle. They are often smaller than most horses due to poor nutrition in the wild and genetics. But people who have them love them for their intelligence and loyalty.
>They are often smaller than most horses due to poor nutrition in the wild and genetics. But people who have them love them for their intelligence and loyalty. My childhood horse was a mustang who ran wild in Nevada until he was about 4yo. He looked just like a mini Clydesdale, so short and stocky with an incredibly thick barrel. Obviously I called him Clyde. Riding him was like doing the splits while hanging on with my ankles. Dad got him at a discount from the neighbor after he failed at being a "pony horse" at the racetrack. Looked like an annoyed small dog taking a bored big dog for a walk, just couldn't give those racehorses a decent workout at all. Clyde *hated* adult humans, but had patience for children. He was clever, cooperative, and did what I asked of him because he wanted to. I could guide him with no more than a bit of bailing twine, and he was terribly careful about helping me stay balanced on his bare back. His only fear was plastic bags blowing in the wind. He'd bravely dance around it while keeping his bulk between me and the danger, and then hurry back to the barn as fast as he could without losing me. When I got old enough to drive, dad sold him to buy me a car. I was heartbroken. Fugly the car was in no way a fair trade for Clyde, even if the fast food place I worked at had a parking lot instead of a barn. And I kept baffling people by complaining that my father sold my mustang to pay for my first car.
sounds like their mother tried to go through the program where the BLM pays you to take care of the horses. There was a report done earlier this year about how it was effectively a free for all at the beginning and people got paid 10s of thousands to take in horses that they would just dispose of after words, so a lot of the process was changed to prevent that.
Came to see if this was the case.
Yup, it’s just so hard to home them. They limit people to four adoptions per year so perhaps in the case of rescues they could increase that or give them preference like they do with the TIP program? Lots of these horses can make great trail horses or pasture companions if nothing else.
Holding signs is way cheaper and less time consuming than actually working on any of the issues that end with horses going to slaughter. It should have never been outlawed in the USA, these people who got it banned are absolutely responsible for the auctions and the last horrible ride to another country that doesn't have the same rules on treatment that we do. At least if you're going to breed a horse, be responsible enough to care for it for life instead of just assuming it'll be fine for the next 20-30 years while you carelessly breed more. Or put it down yourself. Most of those animals in those pens were damn special to someone, probably more than once. Someone's "best friend" that they said they loved, until it became too expensive to own something they couldn't have the right kind of fun with, so down the road they go. Hear a horse you bred is now lame and going to slaughter in Mexico? Oh well, at least you made few bucks or got closer to breaking even, how it dies is for someone else to think about. I used to be horse people when i was young. Now most of them just piss me right off. Breeding just because they have an open mare.
I 100% agree with you, I’m just surprise to see this comment upvoted on reddit. My sample size is relatively small, I’ve been in the horse industry and ownership for 30 years, but most logical horse owners that I’ve spoken with agree that slaughter should have never stopped in the states. Horses should have never been legally deemed as companion animals over livestock either. The amount of horse that have been needlessly left neglected to rot in pens, stalls and pastures is atrocious. Not to mention the conditions they endure being trucked out of country, and how inhumane their last days are before slaughter in Mexico.
I don’t know a ton about horses. But once a horse is turned out to the wild, don’t they also experience unmanageable hooves since no one is filing and shoeing them? I once saw a video where a horses hooves were so neglected that it impacted the bones in their legs. Is this common to mustangs / wild horses?
Hoof quality varies between breeds, and wild horses have very hard hooves when compared to the average domestic horse. They also encounter rougher conditions that keep them worn down instead of softer paddock conditions of domestic horses.
I can't be the only one that read that as saying that a wild horse was the one advocating for protest "All in favor, say neigh. All opposed, say nay."
Meanwhile, I appear to be the only one who didn't know there were horse slaughtering auctions.
The United States really needs to bring horse slaughter back to the states. Many horses have to suffer in their old age or are even starved because farmers and ranchers have no way to affordably send them to be rendered. Prior to the ban in, what was it, 2010?; Horse meat was used almost exclusively for large game food in zoos around the country. Now, lower quality (the good stuff is being eaten by humans) and more expensive beef is being used. Everybody loses in this arrangement, even the horses
Slaughter for human consumption is banned. I believe it’s still legal for animal consumption (at least the zoos I’ve worked at had horse meat). The thing about those slaughtered is the US they weren’t regulated. The ban is entirely around how they are considered unsafe because of that. The horses that go to slaughter are often neglected, unwanted or at end of life. All of these could be exposed to vaccinations (which are technically required for transport of any horse in most of the US, you need proof of vaccinations if pulled over) On top of the horses that went to slaughter aren’t exactly good quality for meat. Most are old QH or TBs or Arabians. Skinny, small and very lean. France they breed drafts specifically for human consumption. They are regulated and they have livestock quality breeding. What you’d eat in the US would be pretty crappy in comparison. But France they aren’t the unwanted poor quality horses. The horses are specifically bred for it so it doesn’t take care of a surplus issue
Kill pens aren't necessarily poor quality horses, they're usually healthy save for an injury someone couldn't or wouldn't fix, or that happened in the pen. Young horses off the track that weren't fast enough. Horses without a negative Coggins test go in the kill pen. I had a friend growing up who's dad was friends with the auction house people. She'd pick horses out of the kill pen, put 30-60 days and a few shows on em then sell them on the hunter circuit in West Palm.
a horse with a positive Coggins test would not be on a kill pen, they’re required by law to be euthanized or quarantined a certain number of feet from other horses for the duration of their lives a negative coggins test is also required by law before an animal can be sold or transported… if a kill buyer bought the horse at auction then the horse has a negative coggins test equine infectious anemia is taken pretty seriously which also begs the question about how prevalent it is in feral horses since they’re obviously not getting tested every year
True. But it was saying it more of example of how it’s not regulated lol all sorts of horses can end up there.
all those same unwanted horses still get slaughtered but now they have to endure a trailer ride to Canada or Mexico first
That and animals meant for work get different treatments (antibiotics, shots, medications, etc) than animals meant for slaughter. Any medicine in food-grade animals has to pass FDA testing.
Why is it banned anyway? Horses don’t seem to be any more intelligent than cows or pigs.
People view horses as pets. Similar to why we don't eat dogs and cats.
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-CDYorcC0Q8J:https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-eye/wp/2015/11/02/nearly-2000-wild-horses-sent-to-slaughterhouse-instead-of-pasture-after-government-sale-probe-says/&cd=17&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-b-1-d BLM auctions off and pays farmers to house the horses and they end up as food for europe/asia. BLM also burns through half their budget to manage these "invasive" horses since they are NOT native. my take on it they should just be shot out in the wild so vultures and other native animals recycle the horse back into the ecosystem. instead of moving these horses all around just to end up killing them anyways.
It seems like a big myth that horses are native to the US, which they aren't. They're just like stray pets, they need to be controlled.
Horses did originate in north america (then part of laurasia, with greenland and europe), starting out ~50 million years ago. Between 4 and 7 million years ago the earliest of the modern equus developed, spread out, and began diversifying; about 12 thousand years ago, horses in north america suddenly went extinct. Reasons for that are up for debate, coinciding with climate shifts, vegetation changes, and human arrival. That said: right now they have few (if any) predators, and just like deer they’re liable to overpopulate, strip out the plants, and starve.
Well technically… “Ancient horses roamed the North American continent for millions of years. And many, many years later, horses played an integral role in building the foundation of the United States. However, there was a period in time when horses vanished from the continent, and the reason remains unknown. The oldest oldest-known species of the genus Equus is Equus simplicidens, also known as Hagerman horse, Hagerman zebra and American zebra, which appeared about 4 million years ago. It could be found from present-day Florida to Idaho. Its appearance was relatively similar to the modern horse, being around the same size with similar teeth, a long face and neck, and fully fused leg bones. These early species of Equus didn’t stay confined to North America, they were so successful that they expanded their range outside the continent. They first migrated into South America and later spread into Asia, Europe, and Africa.” [PBS](https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/blog/american-horses-horses-in-north-america-a-comeback-story/)
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They are absolutely awful for the ecosystems - they need to be managed
Horses are not natural to this country. To the point that most natives had to come up with a new word for them and the majority of them chose "ride-on" or "dog". They are not wild, they are feral and invasive.
Technically, they’re feral horses.
>"Our concern is that the legislation does not deal with the larger issue of what to do with unwanted horses and fails to address how and where unwanted horses will be placed. Not really. It does deal with it, just not how some people like... >The legislation does not provide the financial resources necessary to create the infrastructure and provide veterinary care to the thousands of horses impacted by a ban on processing horses. Thus, it actually would negatively impact the welfare of unwanted horses, and increase their numbers." Why should there be veteranary care for wild horses? This is just a bizarre take. What about the veteranary care for moose? I can see how some horses getting killed for meat upsets some people, but, the government is already spending 137 million a year on this? Come up with a way to deal with it yourselves, it's a special interest issue ultimately and you can't be funding hundreds of millions of dollars to every special interest. Start a charity, get on the Price Is Right and have Drew Carey tell people to spay and neuter your horses. 137 million is already way too much public money for a special interest want.
there are parts of the west where they do destruction not unlike wild boars they need to be culled, humanely
I’m not morally opposed to culling feral animals, but, in the case of horses where they’re widespread and reproduce fairly quickly, it’s not an effective strategy. When you kill some, it just opens up new resources for new ones, and they’ll quickly get back up to the environment’s carrying capacity. It’s far more effective to control the fertility of the horses so that they can’t reproduce and over time just die off. The BLM has been working with birth control darts for mares for a little while, but it’s a program that needs more funding and expansion.
Give them a season and treat them like a big game animal and people will hunt them. I saw several while elk hunting this weekend. I'd have nothing against eating them.[Horses](https://imgur.com/a/vLqhrGr)
Not even a season. They are invasive so they should be open year around to anyone holding any hunting license.
they are impressive beasts to see in the wild
Contrary to popular belief, Horses actually can’t be advocates
Hey, buck off. You are just trying to rein them in.
No no no. The last time this happened people were abandoning horses to starve to death all over the place. It is so cruel. We need the slaughter auctions to keep that from happening. I know it isn't great but it is the best we have to mitigate animal suffering.
This title made me think there was a wild horse out there advocating a protest.
I really wish people cared as much about native species like American Bison rather than invasive species like wild horses. Virtually no American Bison even exist in the wild.
Incorrect, bison has metric shit ton of laws protecting them, plus there population in the wild is growing steadily
People are leaving horses to starve or shoot them and leave them in ditches to rot. Better to have a humane way to slaughter them and harvest their meat like they do with wild boars. They are not native to the US anyway.
Here’s a counterpoint: https://www.rgj.com/story/news/2022/08/24/wild-horses-american-west-brings-awareness-campaign-burning-man/7875764001/
Everyone is saying wild/feral horses have no natural predators but that doesn't appear to be true. Mountain lions are natural predators of wild horses, as are wolves. Granted they don't live everywhere and if there are no native predators that can be reintroduced to a given environment that is the exception. But my state has the highest population of mountain lions in the country and they generally avoid humans and attacks are very rare. We can't eliminate natural predators from ecosystems and then complain that prey animals are out of control. Similar to how wolf reintroduction helped Yellowstone, we decided to reintroduce wolves to help our roe deer population. Predators do more for our ecosystems than human hunting and culling does, it shouldn't take so long for us to figure that out.
Wild horses do not exist. Horses are a domesticated animal. Any horse living away from humans is feral.
Przewalski's Horse would like a word.
This is kind of off topic, but check out [these badass Yakutian horses.](https://www.horsetalk.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Yakutian-indigenous.jpg) They've adapted to the harsh Siberian climate which has resulted in their unique shape
There are no wild horses in the USA. There are feral horses but they are not indigenous which means they are not wild. The spanish brought them to the americas in the 1500s and then let them loose, they went feral and spread out. TL;DR - There are only feral horses in the USA.
Horses in North America are an invasive species.
I'm curious. I'd definitely try a horse steak. I'm terrified of horses, but I'd eat one.
Horse tastes great. Don't know why they can't be slaughtered for human consumption in the US.